Welcome to our sixth edition of Salt and Light, the Quarterly Review of St. John Vianney’s Social Service Ministries. In this issue, we turn our attention to what The Church teaches about solidarity. St. John Paul II in The Gospel of Life (Evangelium Vitae) asserted that “every man is his ‘brother’s keeper’, because God entrusts us to one another. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) explains further that “We are one human family whatever our national, racial, ethnic, economic, and ideological differences. We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, wherever they may be.”
In Of Social Concern (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis),...

Welcome to our fifth edition of Salt and Light, the Quarterly Review of St. John Vianney’s Social Service Ministries. In this issue, we turn our attention to what The Church teaches about our fundamental rights and corresponding responsibilities. The most important of these rights is, of course, the right to life and all those things necessary for survival. All of the many human rights that the Catholic Church recognizes are a result of our belief in the dignity of the human person recognizing that we are all born in the image and likeness of God. To explain more about what the...

Welcome to our fourth edition of Salt and Light, the Quarterly Review of St. John Vianney’s Social Service Ministries. In this issue of Salt & Light, we are turning our attention to one of the basic principles of our Church’s social doctrine: The Option for the Poor and Vulnerable. To understand this teaching, we must first ask ourselves “who are the poor and vulnerable?” In Jesus’ time, the poor and most vulnerable were often referred to in Scripture as widows, orphans, the disabled such as the blind, the sick such as lepers, and strangers. This can be said to be...

Welcome to our third edition of Salt and Light, the Quarterly Review of St. John Vianney’s Social Service Ministries. Unlike our weekly e-newsletters which include updates and information about upcoming SJV events, our Quarterly Review is meant to be more educational in nature. We invite you to join us in our Quarterly Reviews as we explore contemporary issues that are relevant to the Catholic Church’s social doctrine and the Corporal Works of Mercy, and to review our Church’s rich history in both words and actions in the arena of social justice. In addition to articles on these topics, we will...

Welcome to our second edition of Salt and Light, the Quarterly Review of St. John Vianney’s Social Service Ministries. Unlike our weekly e-newsletters which include updates and information about upcoming SJV events, our Quarterly Review is meant to be more educational in nature. We invite you to join us in our Quarterly Reviews as we explore contemporary issues that are relevant to the Catholic Church’s social doctrine and the Corporal Works of Mercy, and to review our Church’s rich history in both words and actions in the arena of social justice. In addition to articles on these topics, we will...

WELCOME to the first edition of “Salt & Light,” SJV’s Social Service Ministry’s Quarterly Review. Unlike our weekly e-newsletters which include updates and information about upcoming SJV events, our Quarterly Review is meant to be more educational in nature. We invite you to join us in our Quarterly Reviews as we explore contemporary issues that are relevant to the Catholic Church's social doctrine and the Corporal Works of Mercy, and to review our Church’s rich history in both words and actions in the arena of social justice. In addition to articles on these topics, we will share with you links to additional...